152 KING GEORGE'S SOUND 



breed but once a year. This slow increase of the rat- 

 kangaroos, and, indeed, of the whole family of kangaroos, 

 is in strange contrast to the immense numbers of many 

 of the species. 



The rat-kangaroos do not progress like the wallabies 

 and true kangaroos by a series of leaps on the hind legs, 

 but run or canter in a peculiar way, using all four feet. 

 They can move very quickly, but if found at a distance 

 from shelter, they can be run down and captured, a thing 

 that can never happen to the leap-progressing wallabies 

 and kangaroos. 



At King George's Sound the echidnas, the koala, and 

 the wombat, have entirely disappeared. I thought and 

 hoped that the latter animal might be found there ; but I 

 could find no trace of it, nor hear that it has ever been seen 

 in the district. This is another circumstance that marks 

 the change of fauna hereabout. 



The birds, too, differ much from those of the other side, 

 though these are overlapping and universally distributed 

 species. All these I cannot find space to enumerate, and 

 many of the small birds are described in the next chapter. 



In the course of my long rides in this district, which 

 sometimes extended to a distance of sixty or seventy miles 

 from Albany, I saw several birds which are not known to 

 the colonists to be inhabitants of the country, amongst 

 them a native companion heron, and a stork which I 

 think was Ardea flavirostris. These birds were probably 

 stragglers in the neighbourhood, for I could not find others 

 of their kind. 



Neither could I learn anything, locally, of a cuckoo 

 which interested me much. I heard this bird on several 

 occasions during my rides, but could never see it, yet the 

 country was poorly wooded with scattered trees only. I 

 think the bird, like others of its family, must be a ventrilo- 

 quist, and have moved from spot to spot while I was look- 

 ing for it in a wrong direction. Sometimes I heard it on 

 the right hand and sometimes on the left, and then behind 

 me ; but as soon as I approached the spot from whence 

 the sound issued, I would hear the calls in quite another 



